


They Shine So Bright

by Pufalup



Series: Colorverse AU [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates, Steve Rogers Feels, soulmate alternate universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 03:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18563284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pufalup/pseuds/Pufalup
Summary: When Steve woke from the ice, he still saw in color. He couldn't really believe it, he thought something must be wrong, and that they'd fade eventually. There's no way that Bucky's still alive, right?After the attack on New York, Steve moved to DC to try to establish a normal life with his new friend, Natasha. Their relationship had grown over time, and now Steve considers Natasha one of his closest friends. Tired of locking his feelings away, he decides that it's time to tell someone who Bucky really is to him.Based on the prompt: You see in black and white until you kiss your soulmate, and the first color you see is their eyes. After that, everything becomes colorful until your soulmate dies.





	They Shine So Bright

**Author's Note:**

> I have to say, I was blown away by the responses the fist fic in this series got! It makes writing so much more fun, and I really hope you enjoy the rest of this series!

 

Steve opens the door to his place in DC, relishing in the feeling of his muscles aching pleasantly after his morning run. Sam’s phone number is downloaded on his phone now. It feels nice, meeting someone normal for a change.

Steve’s new apartment is ridiculously large, with a bedroom, a living room with a full kitchen, a guest bedroom, and a full bathroom. Despite the high quality and all of the new space, he finds himself missing his old apartment. Missing the way the afternoon sun would stream through the windows, settling across the only bed he and Bucky could afford.

Sometimes, when he wasn’t making commissions for book covers and when Bucky was working at the docs, Steve would sit against the wall, his sketchbook in his lap. His pencil would fly across the paper, light as a ghost or dark as night, capturing every angle and tilt of the light against the furniture. The dust particles seemed to glow on the page with a quiet tranquility.

The drawings came from his heart. Each stroke of his pencil was full of his love for his home, however small and cramped it may have been. It was his, and it was Bucky’s, and that was that.

After the plane crash, he found his old drawings inside of the Smithsonian, sprawled out for everyone to see. The drawings he held closest to his heart, ripped out of the nicest sketchbook he could afford and put on display, as if they were some kind of attraction.

Steve pulls his light t-shirt over his head, letting it drop to the floor numbly. He half expects Bucky to come in, chastising him for leaving his clothes everywhere. _‘Where you raised in a barn, Rogers?’_ He would say. _‘Put your damn clothes in the hamper.’_

Steve shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Every day, Steve wakes up expecting the colors to be gone. Every day, he wonders how Bucky is still alive, after seventy years with _nothing,_ not even a hint as to where he went. Every day, Steve watches the sun set, knowing that Bucky is out there. That he’s okay, somehow.

Steve’s phone buzzes on the countertop, a reminder buzzing to the top of the screen. It reads, _‘Four O’Clock Interview at 4770 Ariano Street’_

He sighs, turning the bright device off. He stumbles to the bathroom, stripping as he goes.

The bathroom is way too big to be normal with a walk-in shower and a _seperate room_ for the toilet. Who needs a seperate room for a toilet?

The one nice thing about the new apartment is that it doesn’t run out of hot water in two minutes. Steve lost count of the number of times that Bucky complained that Steve had used all of the hot water. He smiles sadly at the memory of Bucky shrieking from the showers indignantly while steaming water runs down his back. He washes himself on autopilot, barely even thinking about the soaps he uses. He didn’t always have the luxury of soap, back in the day. Sometimes, he and Bucky would have to go weeks without it if they wanted to make rent.

And even though it had been two years since Steve lost Bucky, Steve misses him every day. He misses the way that Bucky would be overly protective of him, despite how much he claimed to hate it. The way that Bucky would wrap Steve up in his arms to keep out the cold on winter nights. He misses the nights they'd spend during the war in Steve's tent tracing their fingers over the planes of each other's chests, sharing through their Soul Connection everything and anything. But most of all, Steve misses the way Bucky kissed.

Bucky kissed like he fought. He kissed with a fierce passion; an intensity that Steve never felt before. Bucky kissed like a forest fire, devouring and all-consuming. A desperate need gone unspoken, only revealed in the furious movement of his lips against Steve’s.

But Bucky also kissed with a tenderness. A caress of a breeze over unfurling leaves in the spring, the soft touch of rain on a bluebird’s wings, the fluttering of a butterfly against blades of grass. His mouth would barely brush against Steve’s right before a fight, a silent plea saying _come back to me._

Steve steps from the bathroom, filling his lungs with the steam-free air. He pulls open his closet, picking out a simple, loose-fitting gray shirt and blue jeans.

He opens his phone, shooting a quick text to Natasha.

_‘Hey nat. I know there’s still a few hours before the interview, but do you want to grab lunch? My treat.’_

He drops the phone as he struggles to comb back his unruly hair. The pot of hair gel doesn’t seem to be much of a help.

His phone buzzes, a text from Natasha popping up on the screen. It reads, ‘ _Sure i’ll be at the place at 12p’_

After a moment, a second message pops up. ‘ _Try not to look like too much of a mess’_

Steve smiles, before texting back, ‘ _You wound me.’_

Natasha only responds with a ‘ _;)’_ , and says nothing else. Steve shuts off his phone. Sure, maybe Natasha would never be like Bucky to him, but she was pretty damn close.

Maybe that would be enough, for now.

  


Steve sits at a table for two at Amsterdam Falafelshop, tapping his foot nervously. A light breeze drifts lazily through the street, carrying petals of flowering trees to the ground. Steve chews his lip, wondering if he should go back on his decision. _She deserves to know,_ he thinks to himself, but it doesn’t stop the unease from rising in his stomach.

What if she judges him? Thinks less of him?

No, Natasha wouldn’t do that. She’s a good person; she wouldn’t judge him on something so superficial. It’s not like her.

It doesn’t change the fact that Natasha is consistently touchy around the topic of soulmates. She never told him their gender, or anything about what they were like at all. Steve only knows that they were killed at some point in time, and Natasha went through the Fade of Colors alone.

“Hey, Steve.”

Steve jumps slightly, looking up at Natasha. She has the usual stoney look on her face, but her eyebrow is cocked this time. “Wow, I managed to sneak up on Captain America, huh?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You know me, I’m just that kind of guy.”

“Uh huh,” Natasha says. She sits down across from Steve. “So, what made you go back to interviews after nearly a year of radio silence?”

“I dunno, I guess it just feels like it’s time,” Steve says, breaking eye contact.

Natasha looks at him suspiciously, but thankfully the waitress comes right before she can speak. “What can I get for you two?” She says, an unnatural bounce to her step.

Natasha sends a stern look Steve’s way, as if to say, ‘ _you get out this time’_. Turning back to the waitress, her glare melts, replaced with a carefully friendly smile. She orders with a fake sort of sweetness, a sweetness Steve has learned to recognise as the tone she uses with strangers. He’s glad she doesn’t  use it on him.

Steve orders his own as politely as he possibly can as well, and the waitress leaves their table without a suspicion as to who they are.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get a lot of interesting questions,” Natasha says, picking up as if they hadn’t been interrupted.

“Should I be scared?”

“You should.”

Steve laughs lightly, and Natasha smiles herself. It’s relaxing to go into this kind of banter with someone, and Steve finds himself not wanting it to end.

So he keeps chatting about nothing with Natasha, keeps laughing about nothing, because it’s easier than what he’s about to do.

“Okay, but if you did that, you’d waste so much cardboard.” Natasha says in between mouthfuls.

“No, only like, an inch a day.”

“Steve, you’re already like, seven feet tall. If you put an inch of cardboard on the bottom of your shoes every day, someone’s bound to notice.”

Steve snorts. “Probably Tony,” he jokes.

“Definitely Tony.”

The pair laughs at that for a second. Steve glances at his watch, his eyes widening when it reads 2:49pm. He knows that Natasha is going to want to get to the interview early, just to stake everything out. It’s now or never.

Steve’s laugh fades, and he lowers his voice. _Here we go,_ he thinks. “Can I tell you something?” He says quietly.

Natasha tilts her head to the side, blinking. “Go ahead,”

“Do you know who Bucky is?” Steve asks. He pushes his salad around it’s bowl nervously.

“Yeah, your childhood best friend. Killed in combat.” She narrows her eyes in confusion. “Why?”

Steve takes a deep breath. _Breathe._ “He’s still alive.”

For a second, Natasha doesn’t say anything. “How do you know that?” She demands. “You couldn’t, unless--”

“Unless he’s my soulmate,” Steve finishes. “Which he is.” He averts his eyes miserably, expecting the worst.

“Oh my god,” Natasha whispers. “You have to tell people about this!” She practically yells, a slow smile spreading across her face.

Steve blinks in confusion, getting the one reaction he expected the least. “What?”

“We need to find him, Steve! Your soulmate is still alive, we need to!”

“I know,” Steve says miserably. “I just don’t know if people will look for him.”

“They will, I promise. People care, especially when it comes to soulmates.” Steve hears the quiet pause in her words, as if it’s hard for her to say them.

Steve stands and pulls Natasha into a hug, trying his best not to tear up. She rubs comforting circles across his back and lets him hug her closer. “This is a really big deal for you, isn’t it?” She says softly.

Steve smiles through his tears and leans into Natasha. “Yeah,” He whispers. “Yeah, it is.”

  


“Jeez, this is nerve wracking,” Steve whispers. “I’m gonna mess it up.”  
Natasha rests a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be fine. You’ve done this before.”

“Now, we have our special guest star, Captain Steve Rogers!”

Natasha smiles softly. “Go kill it out there,”

Steve smiles back, running his hand down his shirt one more time.

When he steps out onto the stage, the first thing he notices is the lights.

They’re blinding and _hot,_ beating down on him at every angle. It’s like over the span of a year, stage lights got harsher. He tries for a bright smile as the crowd roars and cheers.

He takes a seat in a comfortable chair across from the show host, trying not to fidget too much as the cheering goes on.

When the clapping finally does stop, the show host speaks up. “So, Captain Rogers, how’s your morning been?” She asks, leaning her elbow against the armrests on her chair.

“No complaints,” Steve says. “Met some new people and had lunch with a friend. You?”

“Doing alright,” She replies warmly. She leans forward. “Tell us, what’s it like being in the new century?”

Steve blows out a breath before responding. “It’s weird, honestly.”

The crowd laughs, and Steve continues. “It kind of feels like the world moved on without me, and I can’t really keep up.”

The show host nods solemnly, but it seems more in sympathy than anything else. “I’ve gotta say, I don’t know what that’s like. So far, do you like the twenty-first century?”

“I love it, actually,” Steve says honestly. “It seems like everything is better than it used to be. The internet? So amazing.”

The crowd laughs softly, and Steve feels himself relaxing. He could get used to this, he thinks. “I think most of all, I love that everyone’s freer now than they were when I was born.”

“I see, I see.” The show host says. “Is there a reason you stopped taking interviews for nearly a year?”

Steve scratches the back of his head. “Well, I guess I kind of just wanted to settle in a little. Give myself some time to live normally, and all that.”

From then on, the interview goes smoothly. Steve answers a lot of no-brainers, and he seems to be upholding whatever image the public already has of him.

The last question the woman asks is the one that has his heart skipping a beat.

“One more question before you go, and I apologise if this seems rude, but do you think you’ll ever find your soulmate?”

Steve blinks, his mind going blank of a good answer that seems unsuspicious. Behind the wings, he makes eye contact with Natasha. She gives a small nod, as if to say ‘ _It’s okay, tell the truth._ ’

So Steve does. He takes a slow breath, and he can hardly hear over the roaring of blood in his ears. “I already have.”

The show host gasps softly, but her microphone picks it up. “Your soulmate was Peggy Carter, correct? I’m so sorry that you had to go through losing her.”

Steve smiles sadly. How easy it would be, to just tell everyone that Peggy was his soulmate. He couldn’t, not really. It would disrespect her memory, her real soulmate’s memory, and Bucky’s memory.

So he doesn’t. “No, actually. Peggy was just a friend. She found her soulmate after I crashed.”

“Then who, if you don’t mind me asking?” The show host asks, pushing her glasses up her nose.

This is it.

This is the moment that Steve’s life has come to. He’s going to tell the public the information that would’ve gotten him killed, probably. He’s going to reveal to everyone who Bucky really was to him.

Steve closes his eyes and his brow furrows. He says quietly, “Sergeant James Barnes, my best friend, lover, and yes, soulmate. And he’s still alive.”

Just like that, a thousand gasps fly through the crowd, along with a thousand camera flashes. Before the show host can say anything in response, Steve is talking again, standing from his chair. “So please, if you know anything at all about my soulmate, tell someone, anyone. Bring him back to me.” He blinks rapidly, fighting tears back. He nods curtly to the show host, who stares at him in shock. “Thank you.” He chokes out, before he’s practically running off the stage, away from the flashing lights, and out of the public eye.

Natasha marches in front of him, shoving reporters out of the way and saying, “He’s not taking questions right now,” Over and over.

Steve follows behind her, wiping at his eyes. _God, even the mention of Bucky gets me teared up,_ Steve thinks wretchedly.

Natasha unlocks her car quickly and Steve rushes into the door, locking the prying reporters outside. Natasha merges onto the main road, and they’re driving, far away from the mess Steve made. For a moment, Steve and Natasha just sit in silence. Tense, thick silence.

“He would be proud of you.” Natasha says quietly. She doesn’t take her eyes off of the road, and in a way, it’s comforting. “You’ll have to stay out of public for a few days, but they’ll calm down when some other big thing happens. It’ll be okay.”

Steve gazed out of the window at the passing streets of DC, watching the civilians going about their lives. Laughing with their friends, holding hands with their lover, or scooping up their child in their arms. They don’t know what’s about to happen, that Steve Rogers, America’s golden boy, will be rewritten completely.

He almost wishes that he didn’t know, either.

  


The man fights like a storm.

He rains down blows on Steve, using everything in reach, even Steve’s own shield. He switches the knife from hand to hand, coming at Steve with speed to match his own. The fight is intense, dangerous, and Steve channels every scratch of focus he has.

When the mask falls off, time slows to a stop. Steve stares at his lover in shock.

Bucky’s face is blank, nothing but rock hard concentration. It doesn’t show even the slightest form of recognition.

Bucky, _his_ Bucky, his lover, his soulmate, his best friend. Standing right in front of him, his hair in his eyes, and his lips just as kissable as they were before. But his eyes.

His eyes are hollow, their sparkle snuffed out completely, and Steve’s heart _breaks._

It breaks, over and over.

He doesn’t know what happened to Bucky. He doesn’t know what he’s been through, or how he’s even still alive.

The aching want in his chest jerks into a twisted knife, goring at his insides. He wants to touch, to hold, to _feel_.

But all he can do is stare at the love of his life.

“Bucky?” The word falls from his lips, a breath, a whisper. Barely there.

“Who the hell is Bucky?” Bucky spits, and the knife slashes downwards, burning through his insides. Steve’s breath turns into a dry sob because _Bucky doesn’t remember._ He doesn’t know who he is, or what he stands for. He doesn’t know how much he means to Steve.

Steve holds his shield by his side as Bucky aims the gun at him. _It doesn’t matter if you kill me,_ He thinks. _I’d die for you a thousand times over._

For a moment, Bucky hesitates. He hesitates, blinking blearily at Steve. He hesitates, his gun twitching in his hand. He hesitates, but it doesn’t matter, because he moves to shoot anyway.

A bullet whizzes past Steve’s ear before the truck behind Bucky explodes. Bucky ducks down for cover, and when the smoke clears, he doesn’t reappear. He’s gone.

Steve looks behind him.

Natasha stands on shaking feet, holding Bucky’s sniper rifle. A growing stain of blood spreads across her leather jacket, dripping down her shirt. She breathes hard.

Steve looks down at his shield and then back up at her, his eyes wide and panicked because that was _Bucky._ He’s alive and solid, right before Steve’s eyes, but he’s gone. He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone.

He stares at Natasha, trembling. Bucky’s alive, but he tried to kill Steve. What happened to him?

The howling of sirens surrounds them, and dozens of soldiers pour out of black cars.

“Drop your shield!” They scream at Steve.

He obliges automatically, still shaking. He’s on the verge of a breakdown and he knows it.

They handcuff him in flimsy metal, something he could easily break out of. He doesn’t.

Steve is dimly aware of the other soldiers dragging Sam and Natasha away, but he doesn’t care.

He can’t bring himself to care.

Because Bucky Barnes, his best friend, his _soulmate_ , just slipped through his fingers.

Again.

 

Somehow, Maria had intercepted their arrest, and brought them… somewhere. Steve doesn’t care where.

He only knows that Project Insight was launched, and it was about to kill seven million people. He had to stop it.

Steve smashes through a door with his shield. _This should be it,_ he thinks.

He turns onto the catwalk to the control console, and there is Bucky, standing in his way.

Steve’s heart leaps in his chest because Bucky’s _right there._ He’s so close.

Just seeing the blank stare on Bucky’s face, the dullness of his eyes, it nearly kills Steve. He wants nothing more to cradle Bucky’s face in his hands and to kiss away all the hurt and the pain. He wants to make it all better.

Instead, Steve walks slowly and calmly towards Bucky, his shield swaying by his side. “People are gonna die, Buck.” He says softly. “I can’t let that happen.”

Bucky just narrows his eyes a fraction, his posture poised and ready to strike.

“Please don’t make me do this,” Steve pleads. _Don’t make me hurt you._

Bucky draws back his lips in a snarl, hands moving to guns on his belt.

Steve hurls his shield at Bucky as hard as he can. Bucky deflects it easily with his arm, sending it ricocheting back to Steve. He jumps up to catch it out of the air, and Bucky takes advantage of the opening to start shooting. The first few shots glance right off of the shield, but Bucky takes out a second gun and fires it under Steve’s ribs. It makes sense that Bucky knows the shields weakness, since he was the one who taught Steve to use the thing.

Steve hisses when the bullet meets flesh. The pain flares in his side, but he won’t let that stop him. He can’t.

So he swings the shield downwards, bringing the flat of it down onto Bucky’s face. He falls a few feet away.

Bucky gets to his feet, breathing hard. He lunges at Steve, a hunting knife gripped hard in his hand. Steve deflects the blow, but the kick that flies to his knee lands heavily.

He can feel something tear, but he sends the edge of his shield flying up into Bucky’s chin nonetheless. Bucky stumbles backwards, and Steve uses the opportunity to bring down the control panel. Bucky’s at it again. His metal fist comes swinging at Steve, who barely dodges it in time.

The two men fight in complete synch. Each parries the move of the other quickly and efficiently, with a strength no normal man could posses. Their battle is a meeting of oceans, a rising of tides. Punches roll in and out as waves do, clashing with a force brutal enough to knock someone off their feet. The pain is the howling of the wind, the stirring of the water, bringing out bigger and stronger waves to defeat the other.

But just as a seaward storm, the fight cannot last forever.

Steve lies broken and bloody across the control panel. Three bullet wounds riddle his body, stinging with more pain than he thought possible.

“ _Okay, Cap. Get out of there!_ ” Maria says urgently into his ear.

Steve feels the ship under him sway as it locks into position. The guns whirr as they aim at the other two helicarriers, locked on and ready to fire.

Steve slumps down to the floor, his breath ragged. “Fire now,” He croaks.

“But Steve-”

“Do it!” He yells, gritting his teeth as he stands. The bullet in his leg shifts as he does so, causing more pain to sear across his body. “Do it now!”

Steve is thrown to the rail as blasts rain down on the helicarrier. _All these bullets would’ve gone into innocent people,_ he thinks.

The ship groans as more and more shots make contact. Bombs go off over his head, and a stretch of metal ceiling falls to the ground.

A screech rings out over the blasting, turning Steve’s blood to ice. Bucky is pinned under the weight of a metal beam, which fell heavily across his chest. He struggles against it in vain, panic visible on his features clear as day to Steve.

The sight is too much for him.

Steve forces his legs under him, even when the pain seems too much to bear. He throws himself over the railing and tumbles to the ground twenty feet below.

A spike of metal lodges itself in Steve’s thigh, but he yanks it out and stumbles towards Bucky, not caring about the smear of blood down his leg.

Steve shifts his weight to take hold of the beam, his muscles burning from the strain. Bucky watches him, his eyes wide and pleading. He’s scared, scared that Steve will leave him to die.

He cries out as he lifts it off of Bucky, who scrambles free. Steve drops the beam down, and it lands with a heavy _clang_. “You know me,” He grits out.

Bucky’s brow knits, before he snarls and swings his fist at Steve. “No, I don’t!” He screams. The metal meets the flesh of his face, and Steve falls to the ground.

He plants a shaking knee under him, holding his shield up high. “Bucky, you’ve known me your whole life.” He says.

Bucky yells, putting his entire body weight behind his fist. It makes contact again, and Steve sprawls out on the metal beam.

The helicarrier crashes into a towering building, sending the two men sprawling out in opposite directions.

The helicarrier pulls free of the triskelion as it continues its crash course towards the Potomac, still hopelessly firing guns at the other two ships.

“Your name,” Steve pants raggedly. “Is James Buchanan Barnes.”

“Shut up!” Bucky screams, bringing his metal fist up into Steve’s shield. Steve doesn’t have the strength to absorb the blow, so he falls to the glass. His aching body hits the hard ground, and it jostles the bullets lodged inside of him. He pushes himself up onto shaking legs.

Steve pulls his helmet off, freeing his sweat-soaked hair. “I’m not gonna fight you,” He says. He drops his shield through a hole, where it falls with the rest of the debris into the river below. “I love you,”

Bucky pauses for a moment in his fit of rage, before his face twists into something pained and scared. Something human. It’s gone in an instant. “No, you don’t!” He screams, launching a ferocious punch to Steve’s chest, and Steve feels something crack.

Steve stumbles backwards as more pain joins the rest, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, other than getting Bucky home safe.

“I love you,” Steve says again, stronger.

“No!” Bucky yells. He throws down a brutal hit to Steve’s face that lands across his lips. The soft flesh splits open, stinging across his face.

“Yes, I do. I love you.” Steve mumbles through the rising metallic taste of blood in his mouth. He wipes a finger against the cut, and it comes back red.

Tears swell in Bucky’s eyes, a desperate sort of anger raging inside their hollow depths. He bares his teeth, hitting Steve again, but his punch is messy and weak with exhaustion. His voice breaks. “No!”

Bucky looks broken and wrecked. Confused, hopeless and scared. He looks like a trapped animal, hurt and lashing out blindly.

Steve hates it. Wishes he could take Bucky’s hand and remind him of everything, of all the love Steve feels for him. Of all the years they’d spent together, of all the times they’d laughed, the times they’d cried, and all the times Steve would never forget.

Steve stumbles blindly forward. “I love you,”

Bucky’s tears fall. They roll down his chin and mix with bloodied cuts across his face. “ _No,_ ” He sobs out.

Steve takes another staggering step, reaching out to grasp the straps across Bucky’s chest. “I love you.”

“No,” Bucky whimpers. He cries harder, punching feebly against Steve’s chest. His punches are useless, weak, with no force at all behind them. Bucky’s hands eventually rest against Steve, as if he doesn’t have the strength to keep them going.

Steve leans his forehead against Bucky’s, whispering, “I love you,” Again and again. Over and over, until Bucky believes him, until Bucky knows it, sees it, and feels it. Because after all these years, God knows that Bucky Barnes deserves to be loved.

Bucky doesn’t say anything, he just cries, wrapped up in Steve’s arms. He cries, and Steve kisses his tears away, and the Soul Connection opens for the first time in too long. Bucky's insides are a wave of static gone awry, banging every which way. He's confused, lost, and scared. Steve wraps a gentle hand around the storm, whispering tenderness across the raging depths, but the storm is too loud and it isn't enough.

Steve doesn’t take note of the crashing debris, or of the sparking exposed wires. He doesn’t take note of the huge metal beams severing a huge hole in the glass dome, and he doesn’t take note of the static shouting in his ear. All that matters is Bucky.

Steve pulls Bucky closer as the groaning ship bends in half, spiraling closer and closer to the Potomac. The ground beneath their feet begins to crack, and Steve grabs Bucky’s hands. “Come on!” He shouts, before he summons the last of his strength. He sprints towards the hole in the dome, and jumps.

  


At first, there’s nothing.

Then the rush of air hits Steve’s skin, whisking across the drying blood and sweat, and he’s falling.

Falling down, down, down towards the swirling mass of water, Bucky’s hand clasped tightly in his. Steve thinks he might’ve screamed, but he doesn’t know.

The water envelopes him in a cold rush, bubbles whispering by his ears. They crowd around his blurred vision as Steve sinks deeper into the murky depths.

How easy would it be, to just let the water take him. The cold isn’t so bad, after all. It’s comforting, in a way, a constant. The feeling of ice cold water hasn’t changed in a hundred years. It still has the same kiss of relief against pain. The pain seems lesser now. Is the sun setting? It’s getting dark, and the water seems more inviting. Slowly, Steve’s eyes drift closed.

A cold hand yanks harshly on his, startling him from the comforting dark. He’s being pulled upwards, maybe. There aren’t directions anymore, there is only movement.

Then Steve’s head breaks the surface, and he’s gasping for air. The soothing cold is no longer soothing, it’s unbearable. He needs to leave it, but he can’t move. His limbs are lead, and they’re refusing to respond. The water pulls against his open wounds, making them sting at the intrusion. He’s being hauled towards something.

_Bucky._

Bucky’s saving him.

He’s actively saving him.

That means that Bucky’s in there. He’s there, and he’s there enough to protect Steve against the alluring pull of the darkness.

The thought sparks warmth inside of Steve, and he smiles through his cracked lips. Bucky’s with him. His _soulmate_ is with him.

Steve feels the scrape of little pebbles against his back, and he is set down gently onto damp soil. He coughs and splutters as he hears the sound of someone sitting down next to him. Steve pushes strands of hair out of his eyes, and he blinks up at the blurry figure sitting beside him.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” Bucky says quietly after a moment. “That’s my name?”

Steve pushes himself up onto his elbows, smiling slightly. “Yeah, that’s your name.” He says.

Bucky doesn’t meet his eyes, he just stares down at the beach, his hair hanging over his face. “It’s a little long,” He comments.

“Well, to me,” Steve starts, sitting up. He brushes wet strands out of Bucky’s face, tucking them tenderly behind his ear. Bucky looks up at him, and Steve thinks that maybe his eyes are a little less hollow now. “You’ve always been Bucky.”

Bucky tilts his head to the side. “Bucky Barnes,” He whispers. Cracked lips form something like a smile, but it’s not quite right, as if he forgot how. It’s still the most beautiful thing Steve has ever seen. “It’s alright, I guess.”

**Author's Note:**

> In the next fic, which will be multi-chapter, we'll see Bucky recovering along with his and Steve's relationship! :)


End file.
